Posts Tagged Smartphones

It is not an over exaggeration to say that e-commerce is rapidly going on to become “m-commerce”, with mobile devices serving as a major component of traffic to e-commerce websites. With the undeniable role of handheld devices as a shopping channel, it is becoming imperative for owners of shopping websites to optimize their mobile site designs, and monitor end-user statistics round the clock. Mobile commerce sales are expected to increase manifold over the next couple of years, accounting for a whopping 24% of retail e-commerce by 2016.

Needless to say, business owners have an exciting resource to tap in the form of mobile e-commerce, and need to be channelizing a major part of their efforts in this direction. The first step is to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile devices, whether this means creating a new mobile site, or changing the design of your current website into a responsive one. The biggest mistake that one can do is assuming that users shall adapt to their existing e-commerce website on their mobile devices. With all the well-optimized mobile sites to choose from, chances of that are bleak.

The prime focus while treading into the zone of mobile commerce should be to ensure optimal user convenience. You need to understand that users who are shopping on their handheld devices are not simply visiting your website, but are also comparing prices, looking for coupons, reading reviews, and performing a whole lot of parallel functions at the same time. You want to keep your web design as clean and light as possible, to ensure quick loading, easy call-to-actions, and absolute user friendliness. This ease of navigation could give you all the competitive advantage you need from a user’s perspective.

The two options that e-commerce website owners are faced with while trying to enhance mobile user experience are-

Creating an altogether new mobile site

Adopting responsive web design

The latter option is more feasible, as it makes it possible for companies to have a single website that adapts to whichever device it is being viewed on. While the upfront costs of implementing responsive web design might be higher than those of creating a mobile site, it saves significantly more in the long run. Now that mobile commerce is definitely here to stay and grow with each passing day, it would be prudent of business owners to take necessary steps to make the experience of their mobile users an optimal one.

With tablets, smart phones, and other handheld devices are gaining tremendous popularity, website designing is no longer just about how your website looks on the large screen of a computer. Interestingly, according to a recent survey, 45% of the American population owns a smart phone, as compared to 31% that owns a tablet device. No wonder, Mashable has named 2013 the year of responsive website design. So what exactly is responsive website design, and how huge is its impact on the world of internet users?

To put it simply, responsive website design is a dynamic approach to website designing, where emphasis is laid on maximum user satisfaction, by enabling flexibility in browsing depending on the device being used to access the website. The basic difference between traditional or “adaptive” websites and modern, “responsive” ones, is that while the former are based on multiple fixed width layouts, the latter rely on multiple fluid grid layouts.

This means that each page on a responsive website is built based on proportion rather than pixels. This is what makes responsive websites “respond” to the device they are being viewed on, appearing different on different-sized screens. Some websites are also following a mixed approach, whereby they adapt fluid layouts only for small screens, maintaining the use of fixed layouts for large and medium screens.

With the number of devices and browsers with which websites need to be compatible, responsive website design will definitely form the base of the way websites are built in the coming years. By adopting responsive website design, website owners do not need to create different websites for different-sized screens, but instead can use the same website over all platforms.

Some of the key things to ensure before switching to responsive website design for your website are whether you can afford this switch, how long the process shall take, and whether an immediate switch would be beneficial for your business. Checking the statistics of your website users to see how many visit you through mobile devices could be a good way to start. You can do this simply by selecting “audience” followed by “mobile” in Analytics report. You also need to have a content plan in place, and might want to consider whether developing a mobile app for your business would be more beneficial.

It is a good idea to start off with mobile design and gradually progress to larger screens. You can gradually up step your website’s responsive design by enabling features like swiping between columns on touch devices.

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Abdul Subhani

I am the President & CEO of
Centex Technologies Microsoft Small Business Specialist, Certified E-Commerce Consultant, Certified Ethical Hacker, Certified Fraud Examiner, Virtual Instructor and an IT Consultant/Speaker on IT Security, Networking, Small Business Architect, & SEO Internet Marketing.

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